1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for the sale of consumer goods, where the purchaser of an article at the place of purchase collects one or more non-validated card symbols of the article, where data carried on the symbol of the article are read and registered, where such data are converted to a price for the article which is paid by the purchaser of the article, where the purchaser of the article receives a validated symbol of the article, and where the article is dispensed to the purchaser at a dispensing location in return for his/her depositing the validated symbol of the article, the symbol of the article subsequently being invalidated,
2. Prior Art
Such a system is known from, inter alia, the furniture company IKEA.
The known system is based on a purchaser of an article collecting at a place of purchase the non-validated symbol of the article at one of the many service areas found at the place of purchase. When the customer receives this non-validated symbol of the article, the customer simultaneously knows that the article is reserved for him/her in the stock room. When the customer presents the symbol of the article at the check-out register, this symbol, generally in the form of a large card where the article is described, is read either manually followed by manual typing on the cash register, or by optical reading of a code on the card, for example a bar code. The code for the particular article is converted by a computer system to an article price, which is added to the bill that is to be paid in cash by the customer. Only when the article or articles have been paid, will the customer receive a validated symbol of the article. Simultaneously, a message is automatically transmitted to the stock room indicating that the customer has bought and paid for a particular article, so that the customer will receive the article when he/she visits the stock room At the same time the validated symbol of the article, for example a cash register receipt with a special note, is invalidated by the person delivering the article, by a cancellation stamp being placed on the receipt.
EP-A-135,631 teaches a system for the sale of consumer goods, where there is used a programmable card which at a sale is provided with information about the article to be delivered After the article has been delivered, the information on the card is deleted. However, the system may easily be cheated by means of card copies being made.
Other examples of prior art within the patent literature to be mentioned are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,669,596, 3,870,135, 4,767,917, 5,133,441, 3,939,952 and WO 88/04433.
However, within the grocery trade there is another problem which is of great concern, that is, the steadily increasing problem of theft or pilfering of cigarettes and tobacco goods. Particularly in the case of larcenies, packs of cigarettes and tobacco goods as a whole are a favorite object of thefts. This is due to the fact that tobacco goods are easy to sell, both to handlers of stolen goods and to people in general who often buy single packs or cartons in the streets. On a country-wide basis, the theft of cigarettes and tobacco goods in Norway amounts to values exceeding NOX 100 million per year.
It is often found in cases of theft that the whole of the easily accessible stock of cigarettes and tobacco goods has been taken.
By means of the present invention it is sought to solve this problem which is particularly prevalent within the grocery trade.
Although the present system has been shown and described particularly in connection with the sale of tobacco goods, it will be readily understood that the system easily may be used for the sale of other types of goods, particularly where price and size represent a security risk, for example CD's, Russian caviar, etch
According to the invention the system mentioned by way of introduction is characterized by
a preprogrammed, not reprogrammable card which is optically, magnetically or electronically readable and which forms the symbol of the article and which contains data both in the form of a number for the article of merchandise and a serial number which is unique to the individual card,
a merchandise dispensing machine where articles of merchandise corresponding to said article number are stored,
a comparator and controller unit mounted in the merchandise dispensing machine,
a card input having a card reader mounted in the merchandise dispensing machine for the input of said readable card and reading the data on the card,
a control unit at the place of purchases for example a manually operated cash register, where said data on the symbol of the article are read either by the readable area of the card being scanned by insertion of the card into a scanner device or by data for the card being manually read and loaded into the control unit,
transmitting means in the control unit for transmitting a validation signal to and storing it in the comparator/controller unit in the merchandise dispensing machine upon or subsequent to the registration of said article prices said validation signal being composed of at least said serial number,
a comparator section of said comparator and controller unit adapted to receive the data read by the card reader and collate these with the data in said validation signal which are stored in the memory of the comparator section, and in the case of correspondence emit an enabling signal to an controller section in said comparator and controller unit, and
actuating means for a merchandise dispensing machine adapted to receive an controller signal from said controller section and as a result of the controller signal effect the delivery to the customer of the paid number of articles corresponding to said article number from a merchandise supply in said dispensing machine.
According to the invention, it will also be advantageous to let the comparator section be adapted to delete the used validation signal from the memory of the comparator section, simultaneously with or subsequent to the output of the enabling signal.
In the merchandise dispensing machine a container for the collection of cards will be disposed inwardly of said card input and reader. These collected cards where the validation has been cancelled by deletion of said stored validation signals are intended to be brought back to the place of purchase for repeated use.
According to a further embodiment of the system said card input is adapted to return to the customer cards which have not been validated in advance. This means that no article will be dispensed to the customer from the merchandise dispensing machine unless the card has been registered in the control unit and the validation signal has been transmitted from there to the memory of the comparator section.
Said cards may advantageously be designed to carry a complete or partial representation of the article concerned so as thereby to promote the sale of the article. Such articles may be consumer goods, as, for example, one or more of the following items: packs of cigarettes, cigars, snuff, pipe tobaccos and tobacco for rolling cigarettes, etc.
It will be advantageous to let the merchandise dispensing machine have a modular design, with a specific type of merchandise intended for each module. Further, it will be very advantageous to let the dispensing machine be encompassed by a burglarproof cabinet.